Air safety regulations were breached after two domestic passenger planes - one of which was bound for Dubbo - closed to within 2.3 nautical miles of each other, an Airservices Australia report into the incident shows.

But Regional Express (Rex) maintains there was never any danger of the planes colliding.

A report obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald shows two aircraft, an Airlink Beech 1900 bound for Bathurst and a Rex SAAB 340 bound for Dubbo, came within 2.3 nautical miles (4.3km) of each other shortly after take-off from Sydney airport on August 1.

The required minimum separation is three nautical miles.

The incident occurred when the Airlink plane, carrying up to 19 passengers, took off but then slowed by 40 knots as it rose to 5000 feet in heavy turbulence.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that an air-traffic controller and the controllers’ union were blaming staff shortages at Airservices Australia for the safety mishap.

Air-traffic control guidelines stipulate the two controllers responsible for the airspace at that time should have been immediately stood aside while the matter was investigated.

However, the controllers were told to continue working because the control centre was already one staff member short on the day.

“The established process for standing controllers down after an incident of that type was not followed,” a controller, who did not want to be named, said.

Airservices denied it had acted unsafely saying it was appropriate for the controllers to continue on duty because they were not at fault in the incident, News Limited newspapers reported.

Regional Express maintains the incident was not a ‘near miss’ as the planes were four kilometres apart.

“From our point of view there was never any danger of a collision, it was a procedural error and Air Services are investigating,” Rex managing director Jim Davis said.

“We think its a storm in a tea cup, they didn’t get close and the controller was controlling them and he did direct the Rex plane around the other one,” he said.

Mr Davis said the traffic avoidance system in the cockpit of the plane, which tells the pilot than another plane is near, was not activated and therefore there was no cause for concern.

belinda.galloway@ruralpress.com